Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to image forming apparatuses such as multifunction peripheral (MFP) also referred to as copiers, printers, and multifunctional digital machines.
Description of the Related Art
The following description sets forth the inventor's knowledge of related art and problems therein and should not be construed as an admission of knowledge in the prior art.
There is a technique which allows users to perform a particular operation on a personal computer for example, by dragging and dropping an icon to another icon on a screen of the personal computer, which has been commonly known. For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2000-187564 discloses a data processing apparatus which, when an instruction to print a document is given by a drag-and-drop operation, detects that an icon overlaps with another icon, then captures components of a periphery machine (printer) to display.
On the basis of the disclosed technique, suggested is an image forming apparatus such as a MFP, which allows users to perform such an intuitive operation via an operation panel of the image forming apparatus itself.
Usually, an image forming apparatus has events such as paper jams and an empty paper tray, which occur to the body of the image forming apparatus itself. When having such an event, in general, an image forming apparatus displays an alert screen matching this event, on an operation panel of the image forming apparatus itself.
When an event that users would need to be notified of occurs, the current screen in view is interrupted by appearance of such an alert screen. An alert screen may appear during a drag-and-drop operation on a screen, which could cause some inconveniences as follows.
That is, an alert screen, which appears during a drag-and-drop operation on a screen because of occurrence of an event on the body of the image forming apparatus, is usually too large in comparison to the size of the display and thus could occupy most of the surface of the display, interrupting users all on a sudden to perform their operations. In this situation, users have to start this drag-and-drop operation all over again after disappearance of the alert screen, which is troublesome.
In another case, an alert screen, which appears almost at the end of the icon connecting operation by a drag-and-drop operation, could confuse users because they hardly can confirm that a particular operation associated with completion of the icon connecting operation has successfully been completed even after disappearance of the alert screen, which is also an unsolved problem.
In order to solve this, a confirmation screen with a notice of that may be displayed on the operation panel every time a particular operation associated with completion of the icon connecting operation is successfully completed. However, in this situation, users would have to see a confirmation screen even without occurrence of any event, which is still troublesome.
The description herein of advantages and disadvantages of various features, embodiments, methods, and apparatus disclosed in other publications is in no way intended to limit the present invention. Indeed, certain features of the invention may be capable of overcoming certain disadvantages, while still retaining some or all of the features, embodiments, methods, and apparatus disclosed therein.